April 2024: The Bard Meets the Beat

Connect the literary past with today, uniting the theaters of Elizabethan England with modern classrooms. 

Brought to you by the Student Press Initiative​​

ENTER TO WIN

​ABOUT THE BOOK
The Bard Meets the Beat is the product of 9th grade students at The NYC Lab School, who engaged in an exploration of social issues in Shakespeare's “Romeo and Juliet.” To create this collection, students entered into an in-depth analysis of the content and form of Shakespeare’s language and modern day rap music. They went on to explore how both the Bard and rappers use devices like imagery, hyperbole, allusion, and metaphor to both entertain and examine society. Students then crafted thoughtful argumentative essays and used them to co-author verses for rap songs — a new genre of music students called “Academic Rap.” The result is a unique union of the theaters of Elizabethan England and a classroom in Manhattan.

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ELEVATE LITERATURE EXPLORATION
We invite you to use The Bard Meets the Beat with your students to analyze language and to explore the linguistic parallels between Shakespearean works and contemporary music. With your students, discover how authors make use of literary devices but also to critique the societies in which they exist. 

This text can inspire argumentative essays in which students articulate their perspectives on social issues,  or serve as a launchpad for collaborative songwriting sessions, allowing students to actively engage in the creation of original songs. The Bard Meets the Beat can be a way for students to view literature and language as vibrant and evolving, connecting the literary past with today.